


Birds of a Feather

by Wodahn



Series: Hawke Family Trainwreck [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon Divergent, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:50:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wodahn/pseuds/Wodahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few rules you should know about the Hawkes, for your own safety's sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Canon Divergent in that both Male and Female Hawke exist, while Carver and Bethany do not exist or are both dead. (Bear with me)

“I'm gonna tell you a few rules about the Hawke twins, for your own sake.

First off: They're ferocious. You might think you know that already, but trust me, you don't. Until you've actually faced them in a fight you have no idea. And if you have? You're most likely not alive to tell about it. These two will tear you apart on their own, believe me. The rest of us, we're practically just props sometimes, given too little time to actually do anything.

Second: If you want their help, you'll have to take both of them. They're a matched set; if you want one you'll take the other too, and if you need them both you gotta convince them both. A no from one counts for both.

Third: They seem to work almost telepathically. Trust me, if you hurt one of them, the other one will know. Don't ask me how; they just do. Maybe it's a twin thing, I wouldn't know. The point is, they'll know. If you hurt someone one of them cares about, they'll know. And then you'll have to deal with them in a fight. Of course, you won't have to deal for long.

Fourth: In spite of this, they are their own persons. They're surprisingly different, in fact. If you want sarcasm and snark, someone who's not afraid to start smashing some heads together and is as likely to start a fight as prevent it, go for Ciaran. If you need a diplomat, someone who'll talk sense into people – or try, at least; go for Brand. He does his best, bless him. Things just haven't been going in his favour.”

***

They're in the middle of a fight. Some people thinking who knows what, deciding to pick a fight. Nobody is surprised, really. Fights like that are getting far too commonplace by now; it seems they can hardly leave the house in the evenings without being attacked. Ciaran is weaving through enemies like Death made flesh, impossible to pin or stop or even approach without losing a limb or a life; Brand stands off to the side, weaving spells and curses that only enhance his sister's abilities, occasionally hurling lightning and fire and weaving death in his own way, sowing havoc amongst the enemy. They are gods now, unstoppable and untouchable, and the others are hard-pressed to get in even a single hit. This is a game the two of them have played far too many times, a dance they know by heart; smooth and fast and never missing a beat as they tear apart anything and everything that stands before them.

After the fight – it was hardly that, to tell the truth; more like a quick bloodbath – they leave as fast as they can. They have no wish to drag Aveline into this, no desire to hurt her position. Ciaran, for all her snark and biting humour, cared for her friends equally as deep as Brand did, and causing one of them unnecessary stress and worry was not something she wanted. And so they leave, even if the bodies and the blood and the marks are still left there, they leave and do not look back. They cannot. If they do, it might catch up with them, what they are doing, what they have done, how many people they've actually killed. They don't look back, because how can they? How can they look at what they've done without breaking down completely, without falling and never being able to get up again?

***

Somebody came to them with a job offer. Actually, scratch that. Someone came to Brand with a job offer. An offer they must have known Ciaran would not agree with, going to Brand in the hopes that he will say yes.  
Idiot.  
Brand says no. He knows Ciaran, knows she wouldn't agree with this. They have their differences, but the only way they've survived this far is by sticking together. If they split apart... Well, who knows? There are many who would rather have them dead than alive, that's for certain. The Chantry bears little love for them; The Circle equally so. They seem to consider Brand's existence as a personal insult towards them. Add to that the twins' tendency towards saving mages out of the circle (There was never any proof, not enough to catch the two, but it was known well enough), and they were in dangerous straits with half the city – if not more.  
So Brand says no, because how can he not? Had he been Ciaran he might have made threats that were not idle, but he isn't, and he'd rather not have another enemy.

***

Someone has threatened him. She knows as soon as she sees him, when she leaves hers and Merill's and Isabela's bedroom. Someone has threatened Brand. She can see it in the way he doesn't actually smile, not really, how he clutches the letter in his hand, how he knows that she knows.  
She needs only look at him. He understands the question in her gaze, the unvoiced “Who?”. But he just shakes his head, and she drops it. He will tell when he needs to, when he is more distant from the threat. When he isn't worrying himself over what would happen to her, to all of them, if he disappeared, died, was made tranquil.

***

It's Ciaran who ends up having to face the Arishok. He looks at Brand, and Brand knows what he sees. He sees what every qunari sees, what every templar sees, what every passerby on the streets seems to see. A mage, scum, dangerous, avoid, evade, report, _end._ They will not leave Isabela to get hauled off to Par Vollen, and so Ciaran fights. But this is not the dance they have danced so long, this dance is missing half its steps, for Brand cannot help, not with the damping they are using, and it tears him up, wreaks havoc on him, for if he can't even help his sister what's the point? If she dies now, if Isabela is dragged off and their number down to six, what is he to do?

***

Things are going south, and quickly. The templars are aggressive, wanting retribution for what has happened, and the mages are claiming no guilt. And before Brand can manage to discuss something reasonable, a tie that will make them both happy (Or equally unhappy), Anders' plan shows its face again.  
The chantry explodes, hailing stone and fire on the city. The rest of them can only stand there shocked, and then suddenly they have to choose. Brand questions it, questions why now of all times, they should try to fix this mess, but Ciaran just pulls a joke, knowing who they've chosen already. They'd be fools to pick someone else. They drag their friends along, this band of misfits they picked up along the way and made a family out of, and they face down any and all who would try and stop them.

***

They make him viscount.  
It only makes sense, really. He was always the more stable of the two; the most diplomatic, the most grounded, the most calm and collected. He was earth and mountain and patience where she was seawater and fresh air and bright eyes that could never seem to settle.  
She doesn't stay. She can't, won't. The world calls to her again, as it always has, a siren's call she can't refuse. She promises to return, but it feels like he's being ripped apart when she leaves. He knows she feels the same. She leaves alongside Merrill and Isabela and tugs Anders with her, leaves him with Fenris and Aveline and Varric, to rebuild the city and make it better than it was, a safer place for everyone. When Isabela's ship leaves, he can only cry, for he cannot stop her. Will not stop her. All of them cry, Aveline and Varric and Fenris and him, and afterwards they celebrate their accomplishments together and end up sleeping in a pile in Varric's room, too drunk and torn up to care anymore.

***

Some days his leg aches. A memory of the fights he has gone through, getting where he was now. He didn't really want to become viscount. He would have been happy living off in the country, have a farm like they used to back in Ferelden. He can't fight as well as he once could. He's not so good with reading – Ciaran was always better. He would claw his way through documents and letters and reports, reading slowly to make sure he gets it right. He walks with a limp, some times a cane. But he walks.

***

The sea is everything she remembers. Free. Open. Isabela brings the lot of them to Rivain first. She wants to show off, Ciaran supposes. Not that she minds. It's a nice respite from Kirkwall, with its oppressive walls and oppressive views on mages and elves and really anyone who's not a perfect little mage-hating Andrastian.  
Seeing the Qunari again is less fun. None of them seem to recognize her, but then again, you never know with them. She didn't really mind them in Kirkwall, to tell the truth – she understood them. Their ideology. But she still woke with nightmares of the Arishok charging her down, killing her, forcing Brand to stand by as she was killed and forcing him to see Isabela get dragged off right after his twin has be killed before him. Getting torn apart from both his twin and one of his sisters-in-law. Or opposite, him facing the Arishok, even with dampers, getting slaughtered, Isabela being hauled off still.  
It haunts her more nights than not.

***

They come back eventually. They never could stay apart for too long.


End file.
